Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee;
"These documents also raise several additional issues of interest. First, it is extraordinary that the New York Times now acknowledges that the captured documents demonstrate that '[Saddam] Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.' This only reinforces the value of these documents in understanding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Only 1 percent of the estimated 120 million pages of captured documents have been reviewed, and we must continue working to promptly understand these materials. If there is concern about Saddam's nuclear program, there should be similar concern about potential connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda suggested in the documents."Second, my staff's preliminary review of the documents in question suggests that at least some of them may be internal IAEA documents. There is a serious question of why and how the Iraqis obtained these documents in the first place. We need to explore that carefully - I certainly hope there will be no evidence that the IAEA had been penetrated by Saddam's regime.
"Finally, it is disappointing but not surprising that the New York Times would continue to participate in such blatant and transparent political ploys, including what I believe are improper efforts by the IAEA to interfere with U.S. domestic affairs. The sad reality is that the New York Times has done far more damage to U.S. national security by the disclosure of vital, classified, intelligence programs than is likely to be caused by the inadvertent disclosure of decades-old information that had already been in the hands of Saddam's regime."
Via Michelle Malkin, who has the full statement.
2004, all over again. It's not the first time the the IAEA has attempted to interfere in a US election. And like the Al Qaqaa "unguarded weapons dump" story, the New York Times is always eager to play the game.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that before the invasion of Iraq Germany's spies (BND) estimated that, unless interupted, Saddam could have a bomb within 2 years.
I just think it is ironic that an Heyrab is leader of the IAEA
Has anyone ever trusted Blix.
Remember these sayings, The more things change the more they stay the same. Or, There are none so blind as those that will not see.
Who will lead the next Enlightenment. Certainly not the democrats, liberals, ndp or msm.
The media and talking heads and msm can brag next Wednesday, WE DID IT, if the dems win.
Unfortunately it will take many years before they realize what they have done.
They have never given a thought that everything that goes wrong from now on will be blamed on the democrats, and americans for voting for them. Americans will wake up in Jan 07 and discover that the troops are still in Iraq, and Afganistan, civilians are still being killed, and the world still hates the USA. The cowards who are hiding in mosques behind women, (and escaping dressed as women) will still be cowards.
Those papers were 20 yrs old folks try google.
The weapons inspecters said nothing in Iraq.
Lets not forget - the existence of weapons of mass destruction begins at the conceptual stage -in the mind. Anyone who believes that it had not gone beyond the conceptual stage for Saddam lives in fool's world.
Kate:
Yes, it would have been criminal negligence to have overlooked some 350 tonnes of explosives.
Considering that Iraq was filled with weapons dumps, it is probable that they didn't get 100% of all the caches. That is the fluidity of battle
Also, had it disappeared this would have provided ample fodder for IEDs, or assembling a nuke.
The Al Qaqaa weapons story was also run by the BBC and Reuters.
Of course the NY Times ran this story in the runup to the last 2004 US elections, and here is a chronology:
http://alamonation.blogspot.com/2004/10/cbs-new-york-times-planned-october.html
For more excitement you can read here:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-explosives.htm
Al Qa Qaa HMX/RDX/PETN stockpiles
AN IAEA Record of Monitoring Inspection for Al Qa Qaa for 14 January 2003 reported the following inventory:
The contents of nine bunkers (34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 49, 50, 51, 59), all with the front entrance doors sealed by Agency seal, were 100% item counted. Four lots of HMX identified with their shape, weight and manufacturing countries were accounted for.
1) Rectangular wooden box (~30x40x60 cm3) of 35 kg originating from China.
2) Cubic wooden box (~40x40x40 cm3) of 30 kg originating from Yugoslavia.
3) Cylindrical carton drum (~040 cm x 70 cm) of 50 kg originating from Yugoslavia, and
4) Cubic carton box (~40x40x40 cm3) of 25 kg originating from France.
The New York Times and CBS 60 minutes disclosed on October 25, 2004 that the IAEA reported that nearly 340 metric tons of high explosives had gone missing from the former military facility at Al Qaqaa. The disclosure was made in a letter by IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei to the Security Council. The agency had been made aware of the disappearance of the explosives by Iraqi authorities October 10, 2004.
The letter addressed to the IAEA, the General Director of the Planning and Following Up Directorate of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Iraq declared the following items "lost after 9 April 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security".
Site Equipment/
material Quantity (tons) Remarks
1 Al-qaqaa Company HMX 194.741 High explosive material.
Declaration on 15 July 2002.
2 Al-qaqaa Company RDX 141.233 High explosive material.
Declaration on 15 July 2002.
3 Al-qaqaa Company PETN 5.8 High explosive material.
Declaration on 15 July 2002.
The IAEA was reported to have expressed concern about the danger these explosives posed in their role as possible triggers to nuclear weapons, both before and after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
While the facility was supposed to be under American guard following the 2003 invasion, it remains unclear whether the stockpile had already been removed from Al Qaqaa by that point. Following the return of inspectors to Iraq in 2002, At that time, the IAEA reportedly discovered that 35 tons of HMX were initially unaccounted for. Iraqi authorities later explained that the explosives had been used mostly as part of civilian programs. The IAEA placed seals on a number of bunkers at the site in January 2003. The IAEA last verified the presence of the explosives in March 2003.
The Pentagon has identified a two and a half month period during which the explosives were most likely removed, but it includes time from before and after the fall of Baghdad, leaving open the question of whether U.S. failure to properly secure the site enabled looting of sensitive materials. One senior official was quoted in the New York Times article as saying that Al Qaqaa had been designated by the Central Intelligence Agency as a “medium priority” site but had never been secured.
In response to the controversy, the White House initially asserted that the materials were already gone by the time the troops from 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division arrived on 10 April 2003. However, that unit's commander at the time was quoted in a 27 October 2004 New York Times article in response to the the White House claims, saying, "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad." He added that he was not aware the site was considered sensitive until the news story broke. A current spokesman for the unit said that when troops arrived on the 10th, there were already looters present. And the Associated Press reported on Oct. 27 that the unit secured the area upon arrival and looked into a limited number of bunkers.
Troops from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division arrived at the site on 3 April 2003, a week earlier than the 101st, but they did not execute a thorough search of the site either, and departed two days later. By the time the 75th Exploitation Task Force inspected the site on 27 May 2003, the site had been looted.
The explosives consist mainly of 195 metric tons of HMX that had been under IAEA sealand and 141 tons of RDX. Also missing were almost six tons of PETN. Both RDX and PETN were subject to regular monitoring of stock levels by the IAEA. According to the Sept. 27 Washington Post, several experts have noted that removal of such large quantities -perhaps upwards of 400 tons- would be logistically quite difficult. For instance, even with heavy trucks, several dozen vehicles would be required.
Aside from the specific nuclear risk posed by HMX, all of the explosives could be used to produce bombs strong enough to collapse buildings or shatter airplanes. Further, if these materials are available to the Iraqi insurgency, they consitute an enormous stock for the road-side bombs and other attacks that have hindred reconstruction and stabilzation efforts, in addition to posing significant danger to coalition troops and Iraqi security forces.
An ABC affiliate with KSTP-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul, embedded with the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 push towards Baghdad recorded footage taken at the Al Qaqaa site. The footage, taken on April 18, 2003 and thus after the capture of Baghdad and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, depicts bunkers still filled with explosives at the time the troops arrived at the facility. [KSTP-TV story]
DoD released on Oct. 28, 2004, imagery showing two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers of the Al Qa Qaa Explosive Storage Complex approximately 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, on March 17, 2003. According to the relese: "It is not believed that all 56 bunkers contained High Melting Explosive also known as HMX. A large, tractor-trailer (yellow arrow) is loaded with white containers with a smaller truck parked behind it. The International Atomic Energy Association inspectors identified bunkers in this complex as containing High Melting Explosive." However, a comparison of features in the DoD-released imagery with available commercial satellite imagery, combined with the use of an IAEA map from its Action Report showing the location of bunkers used to store the HMX explosives, reveals that the trucks pictured in the DoD image are not at one of the bunkers containing the missing stockpiles.
On Oct. 29, 2004, DOD conducted a Special Briefing on Al Qa Qaa, with Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Lawrence Di Rita and Major Austin Pearson, a member of the 24th Ordnance Company, 24th Corps Support Group. The unit's "mission specifically was to go in there and to prevent the exposure of U.S. forces and to minimize that by taking out what was easily accessible and putting it back and bringing it in to our captured ammunition holding area".
Given the use of 17 trucks and trailers to haul the material, and taking into consideration the configuration, the packing, and the characteristics by weight and cube of how the ammunition is to be packed, the officer estimated that approximately 200-250 tons of ammunition had been removed from the facility; all of which was later destroyed. Of that amount, DoD believes some portion may have consisted of HMX material, but did not offer any certainty on this. The ammunition acknowledged by the ordnance officer to have been collected reportedly consisted of a variety of ammunition (TNT, plastic explosives, detonation cords, initiators, and white phosphorous rounds). However, it remained unknown what percentage, if any, actually consisted of HMX and RDX material.
The ammunition in question was loaded onto the trucks and trailers either manually or using a forklift. These palletized boxes were wooden boxes, and would thus not account for other material accounted for by the IAEA or present in video footage of the location shown to be contained in cardboard cylindrical containers.
According to the briefing, the unit in charge of gathering the ammunition only accessed bunkers which it could easily get into, i.e. bunkers that were already open and exposed. The officer further did not recall seeing any IAEA seals at the locations that he and his unit went into. The briefing left unresolved the question of much material was still present at the site after that visit.
Considering that about a 1/2 kilogram of HMX/Semtex took out the Air India flight over Lockerbie, Scotland several hundred metric tonnes of the stuff would make a lot of IEDs, on the assumption that Al Qaeda and similarly minded groups/individuals eventually got a hold of the stuff.
For more on explosives:
HMX and RDX are key ingredients in plastic explosives such as Semtex and C-4, puttylike substances that easily shaped and disguised in various configurations. It has been reported that less than 1 pound of Semtex was used in 1988 to down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
Joshua Marshall asks if this is the kind of explosive al Qaeda would like to get its hands on. Marshall links to this page by al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen whose is answer is yes. According to Bergen, that's the type of explosive would-be LAX bomber Ahmed Ressam got caught trying to smuggle into Port Angeles, WA from Canada.
The New York Daily News reports herethat forensic tests show that the bombers who destroyed the United Nations and Jordanian missions in Baghdad used RDX and HMX explosives. (Thanks to this dKos posting for the link).
RDX is Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine also known as cyclonite, or hexogen, is an explosive material widely used by the military.
There are many interpretations of its acronym including (but not limited to) Royal Demolition eXplosive and Research Department Explosive. In fact the latter is nearest to the mark. New explosives were given an identification number preceded by the letters 'RD' indicating 'Research and Development'. For some reason, this explosive was unable to be given a number (the story goes that the department that issued the numbers had just blown itself up - but this may be apocryphal). Instead the letter 'X' was appended to indicate 'unknown' with the intention of adding the number later. Although a number was issued, the term 'RDX' stuck.
In its pure synthesised state it is a white crystalline solid. As an explosive it is usually used in mixtures with other explosives and plasticizers or desensitizers. It is stable in storage and is considered the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives.
RDX forms the base for a number of common military explosives: Composition A (wax-coated, granular explosive consisting of RDX and plasticizing wax), composition A5 (mixed with 1.5% stearic acid), composition B (castable mixtures of RDX and TNT), composition C (a plastic demolition explosive consisting of RDX, other explosives, and plasticizers), composition D, HBX (castable mixtures of RDX, TNT, powdered aluminium, and D-2 wax with calcium chloride), H-6, Cyclotol and C-4.
It is a colourless solid, of density 1.82 g/cm³. It is obtained by reacting concentrated nitric acid on hexamine. It is a heterocycle and has the shape of a ring. It starts to decompose at about 170°C and melts at 204°C.
At room temperatures, it is a very stable product. It burns rather than explodes, and only detonates with a detonator, being unaffected even by small arms fire. It is less sensitive than pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). However, it is very sensitive when crystalized, below -4°C.
It was widely used during WW II, often in explosive mixtures with TNT such as Torpex (TNT (42%),RDX (40%) and aluminium (18%)). RDX was used in one of the first plastic explosives.
HMX is a development of RDX.
Like RDX, it has various translations of its acronym including High Melting eXplosive, Her Majesty's eXplosive or even High Velocity Military eXplosive. In fact the acronym simply means 'High Molecular weight rdX'.
Its chemical name is cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine and is also called Tetrahexamine Tetranitramine. It is a powerful military explosive material; it is also used in rocket fuels. It may be produced by nitration of hexamine in the presence of acetic anhydride, paraformaldehyde and ammonium nitrate.
HMX, also known as octogen, explodes violently at high temperatures. It decomposes around 280°C. Its density (in cgs units) is 1.91 g/cm³.
HMX is the military's most powerful conventional (non-nuclear) explosive, though Octanitrocubane is expected to be more powerful. In general, the explosive power of high explosives is directly related to its molecular weight.
HMX is used to make so-called explosive lenses which are explosive materials configured in shapes to focus the energy produced by an explosion. Explosive lenses are used to detonate nuclear weapons.
Oh and while we are at it:
Google "Operation Ajax" the 1953 CIA operation which deposed a democratically elected government in Iran.
Ahmadinejad referred to this, in his long running letter to President Bush.
See this article:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-159.html
This would in some respects underscore the deep distrust the Iranians have for American policy. Of course the context is in respect of the old Cold War politics.
This history gives Ahmadinejad the rationale for supporting Shiite mayhem in Iraq, while he continues rocket and nuclear advances.
One can fill in the blanks, that a western/Iranian dust up is not far in the offing given the ongoing hostile rhetoric.
CS, This may be the ideal thumbnail short course to bring all those who are pressed for time, up to speed.
You and many who comment here will be in the know, however, to save those who have no time to read books... this is excellent!
The more who learn this, the better, and it*s painless.
Obsession: Radical Islam Part 5
Before this vanishes from politically correct YouTube, You owe it to yourself to view this short Video insight and be amazed and awakened. Saves a ton of heavy reading.
Obsession: Radical Islam Part 5
w.w.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgQyRuZ7rs&NR
Watch part five first and then watch one upwards as you wish.
What is repeating today, exactly as it did in Chamberlain*s time, 1938, leading up to world war II ?
Will Michael Moore mislead and contribute to the deaths of millions?
Do you have a clear picture of the Iran Mullahs, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas,
And the common thread running through them all?
Are you afraid you will panic if you glimpse some truth the Media is keeping hidden from all North Americans?
I have often said joining the dots was important. These
Experts use that very same phrase. Without the true picture of current threats, we have no hope in hell of pressing our government to protect our free and civilized lifestyle.
Be informed or be prepared to learn Farsi & Urdu and the Khoran. Be sure to alert your friends.
1938 is here again today. Let*s save millions of lives this time.
For a Conservative majority. = TG
That nazis were developing their own heavy water and comming out with their own nucular weapons and even developing their own long range bomber to reach New York
El-Baradei is a traitor? Don't think that is impossible.